Life is better living the truths in the scriptures

Yikes, my last two posts were in September and January. I have not been consistent in writing since last year. This has been partly by choice and partly because of a lot of busy things going on this last year. Let's see where this post takes us (or me).

Ya, that's right. About a year ago I thought I was going to graduate, get a job and move. It turns out that I didn't graduate, got turned down for job interviews because of it and had no reason to move. There were a whole bunch of our friend who moved out of the ward at that time and we wanted to be a part of it. There was a mass exodus of friends that moved into this ward (branch at the time) and we wanted to ride the momentum and head out of here on a wave of excitement.

Heavenly Father has other plans for us. I actually think he has different plans for Angie, but I'll tell you the plans that I think He has for me.

I have learned to slow down a lot. Not all the way. But I am able to consciously slow down about all the things I think about and pack into my schedule. It turns out that the reason I'm so busy is because...drum roll, please...I fill up my schedule with stuff!

Man, how silly is that. I was so close to the problem I couldn't even see it. My stress levels have risen over the past several years and got to the point months ago that I thought I was going to pop. I'll just say that I was very tense, almost like I was in a fight or flight situation with every little thing in my life, every thing I thought about. There was no danger, just the perception that I had to accomplish a lot in a short time. The more I worked through, the more I pressed on to do more. Did I slow down to appreciate the accomplishments?

Nope. Big mistake.

Aren't I supposed to enjoy the journey and enjoy the accomplishments? Yes, yes, yes! But I didn't. I couldn't in that state of mind. I pushed to get done, thinking I'd feel better when my load was lighter.

One of the many scriptures that has brought me to this realization is 2 Ne 2:25, which says

25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

And, of course, my friend King Benjamin's wisdom in Mosiah 4:27, which teaches me that

27 ...it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.

The Lord is blessing me through the truths in the scriptures and the whisperings of the Spirit. I have been practicing turning off my Go, Go, Go habit and playing more with my kids or actually sitting around and doing nothing. 

This week I read a nice article about productivity on LinkedIn by Ilya Pozin. It's really about unproductivity. Thing #1 hits the nail on the head - put less on the To Do list and get more things done. It's not about the amount of things you check off your "list", but what is actually accomplished. And I'm not even talking about work here. I'm talking about life in general. Life needs to be worth living and that means enjoying the journey as we were meant To Do by our Creator.

I'm becoming better off by living the truths in these scriptures.

Yes!

Family Search and Indexing

A few weeks ago I was visiting family and went to church in their ward. Our lesson in priesthood meeting wasn't from Teaching of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow, but was a special lesson about indexing  on FamilySearch.org.

I've done some indexing before and I thought it was a lot of fun. Angie got into it too and she did even more than I did. I was about to say, "I don't remember why I stopped indexing," but then remembered why. The records that were available to download were so hard to read that I couldn't contribute. I'd download a batch and try to decipher some names, but couldn't do much. There were some Brazilian census records back then so I thought it would be awesome to give those a shot. I served a mission in Brazil so I knew I'd recognize some names. Well, it happened to be the same story. I could read some, couldn't read others. So I stopped.

Lots of time has past - probably a year and a half or two years. I never checked the indexing database in the meantime for legible records. After this lesson a few weeks ago I got really interested again. The demo that day was of some really legible documents so I came home, loaded the software on my laptop and away I went.

The first projects that I saw on there were census records from the 1800s as well as passenger records. The census records were from New York. I think they were only from 1865, but there may have been other years. I thought it was kinda funny that the census was on a non-decadal year and how we got on a different track than that. Just a curiosity, but I like thinking about that kind of stuff.

The census records usually have a whooooooooole bunch of people on them. It feels like it takes forever to index names like that if I base it on how often I finish and upload batches. That's not the real goal here, it's the overall project. But there is a certain satisfaction that comes from finishing something, uploading it and downloading another.

The passenger records were quite different. Lots of them only have a single name on them. Talk about simple! Some of the passengers' gender was recorded with just a check mark! Ha! I loved thinking about who these people were, why they were leaving Europe (some Prussia and Bavaria) to come to America (mostly New York and Baltimore). Were they seeking a land of new opportunity? Catching up with family? I don't know, but I'd love to find out. It's so fascinating!

Ah, I just remembered that I also got some records of servicemen joining the military to fight in the Spanish War. Crazy daisy! Joining the military makes me nervous so I was a little nervous for them.

I don't know how many people around the world are helping with this indexing project, but I know it's a lot. Have you helped?

Conference is in the air

The first weekend in October is coming! What an awesome time of year this is. I think I subconsciously associate General Conference with the chilly morning air of September. It's an awesome time of year for a few reasons like no more summer heat, trees change colors (well, lots of trees in this area just go to sleep, but stay green), and the dark mornings will soon brighten with the end of Daylight Savings. All cool stuff.

Of course, I've been waiting for 6 months for General Conference. Ever since the last amen by President Monson in the Sunday afternoon session in April I have looked forward to October. And for 6 months I have read conference talks and have lessons on them in sacrament meeting talks and in elders quorum meetings. I also listen to talks in my car on my way to school. There were tons of awesome talks last conference and I'm re-reading some of them now and loving them. You know what's funny? I notice a big difference in how I feel when I read talks for my morning scripture study compared to when I hear them in the car. The Spirit is stronger when I read. It's probably because it's quieter and because I'm not distracted by details of driving.

This last week or so, I read and heard some really cool talks. When I really concentrate on them, I feel the Lord reaching down from heaven and filling my mind with directions for all aspects of my life. He helps me in my research, especially when I'm stuck on something. He helps me be a loving and kind husband. He helps me see how to teach my kids the gospel so they will be happy, both in our home now and for the rest of their lives.

The most important part of listening to conference talks, of course, is to feel and recognize the Spirit and learn how to become like our Savior, Jesus Christ. There is a tasty side to General Conference for our family. You may remember that we make peanut butter popcorn! T&L, if you're watching, thanks again for that recipe. :)

We have started talking with our boys about conference weekend. This helps us to look forward to it and also to settle down and prepare our minds for the weekend. It's like a marathon mixed with a fire hose. It really takes a few months to digest all the talks properly. And I'm thinking now about ways I can adjust my scripture study to make it for efficacious. This time I want to read through all the talks and mark them up. When I've done this in the past, I get more out of them when I hear them in the car. It doesn't go the other way for me.

Last night Angie brought up taking notes as she was heading to the Relief Society session of General Conference. It is something I used to do a lot more than I do now. I was on the extreme end in my younger years, to the point that only be able to summarize the talk and the stories therein and miss the real meaning or the principles that the Lord would have me learn right then. Now I'm on the other extreme and I hardly take any notes. Today at church, my friend JO said (and if it wasn't him, it was someone else in our joined meeting) that he takes notes just so he can pay attention. The debate for Angie and me is whether or not it actually helps because we don't go back and read the notes! I know that taking a few notes will keep my mind on the talks so that's a good reason for doing it. The times I take notes on what impressions come to me are the times I take away a really important theme for me to work on. It's really important to me and I love working on things and improving myself.

Maybe taking notes like that works for you too. If you'd like to share your thoughts on how you take notes, please do. As for me, I'll have out my little notebook and watch and listen for the Lord's direction in my life.

And eat some peanut butter popcorn.

Stop it!

I've had an amazing and shocking experience since Brigham was born. My struggle with sanity and parenting for the past several years has become the norm (unfortunately) and the birth of my third son has been a big wake up call in how I deal with "problems" that I face on a daily basis.

For you parents out there who have more than one child and, for better contrast, with several years in between any two kids, this should make a lot of sense. Our lives turned to bliss when Brigham was born. Even the energetic older kids pushed the pause button on the ludicrous speed. I would look at Briggie and think, "Wow, I love you so much. Why do I love you so much? I don't know, but I do know you haven't done anything to make me mad."

A few days or weeks after the novelty of our newest birth wore off, we got back to normal. And I mean the normal that I've been trying to turn into happy times with less success than I hoped for. The short of it is this. The all-too-common complaining and bickering spurts would raise my temperature and then I'd look at the new baby who has never yelled at me and my feelings would abruptly change. Yes, that was a good feeling. I'm not complaining about that for even a (milli)second. The shock was that I have the difficult times and deal with those circumstances with such negative emotion.

It's really sad to me to think that I don't handle life and challenges better than that. I used to handle challenges like the water running off the untouchable duck's back. Now I long for those days and am trying to get that back. Piece by piece. Little by little is better than nothing. And it's been a hard road so far. There has been progress lately and I guess that's why I'm writing this blog post.

This last General Conference had some talks that talked about the problems that come when we hold onto anger, hurt and other prideful feelings. I've heard these different talks just this last week or two so they stuck out. Elder Scott talked about how anger, hurt and defensiveness gets in the way of receiving revelation. President Uchtdorf, in his now-famous "Stop it" talk taught me the following. I'll quote the paragraphs that mean the most to me. I'd like to paste his whole talk in here. It's that good.

Jesus taught: “Forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not … [stands] condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin”³ and “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”⁴

Of course, these words seem perfectly reasonable—when applied to someone else. We can so clearly and easily see the harmful results that come when others judge and hold grudges. And we certainly don’t like it when people judge us.

But when it comes to our own prejudices and grievances, we too often justify our anger as righteous and our judgment as reliable and only appropriate. Though we cannot look into another’s heart, we assume that we know a bad motive or even a bad person when we see one. We make exceptions when it comes to our own bitterness because we feel that, in our case, we have all the information we need to hold someone else in contempt.

Man. This describes me all too well. I have to admit to myself that when my kids are being kids (not making bad choices, I mean just being their learning selves) that my bad reaction does not have to enter the equation. The situation would be better off if I could just chill. I'd also be better off for the time I'd gain back where I, instead, have to cool off.

He said, “… of you it is required to forgive all men.”⁷

May I add a footnote here? When the Lord requires that we forgive all men, that includes forgiving ourselves. Sometimes, of all the people in the world, the one who is the hardest to forgive—as well as perhaps the one who is most in need of our forgiveness—is the person looking back at us in the mirror.

This topic of judging others could actually be taught in a two-word sermon. When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following:

Stop it!

So I have some major renovation to do and I've already begun. It's hard. I believe that Jesus the Christ has paid for my sins and felt all the pain that I will ever suffer. He is willing to take that upon Himself because he loves me and He loves you. "Come unto me" comes with a beautiful reward of peace and happiness. Guess what I just realized? It also comes at a price. What price? "I will show unto [you your] weakness" (Ether 12:27). And while I am struggling now, I know from experience that the peace that will come into my life and permeate my heart in the end (and yes, at certain points along the way) will be much higher peaks than the valleys of difficulty.

I take great comfort in at least one point of Christ's doctrine. It is that children under the age of accountability  are without sin and are perfect in Him. Skyler isn't even 8 yet so he is, in at least that sense, perfect. As I've watched him make choices I can see that he has the purest intent in everything he does. He is just hard to control. 

Control? Yes, apparently that's what I'm after. And it is I who needs to let go. 

I am applying the two-word sermon of "Stop it" and I already feel the Lord's tender mercies in my life. Outcomes are not what I would choose them to be. I'm frustrated on a daily basis, but avoiding the buildup of stress and anger is reward enough for the hard work. I hope this weakness will become a strength unto me.

Wherever you are

This morning I was reading in Helaman 7:7-9 as part of this week's Sunday school lesson. This is the chapter when Nephi was praying on his tower and the wicked Nephites (Gadianton's robbers) gathered around to hear him pray. Kind of a funny scene in my mind, but it set some awesome events in motion over the next few chapters and lots of people get converted.

Anyway, these verses have an attitude that will bless any person in whatsoever circumstances they find themselves in life. This might be the place they live, the job they have, hard things to deal with, or anything else that's hard to handle.

Nephi was having a hard time with the wickedness that his people had fallen into. In verse 7, Nephi wishes that he had lived centuries before when the Nephites were "easy to be entreated" and "were quick to hearken to the words of the Lord." What a great time that would have been!

However, Nephi is quick to say next that he knows he has been called to live in his own time. This is the part that caught my attention. It reminds me that the Lord has put me here on earth and given me the life that I have. There are some things that I wish I could change about my circumstances. But this verse teaches me that life isn't meant to be a breeze and that I need to learn from the difficult things. In fact, it is actually those hard things that give me cause to remember the gospel, our Savior, repentance and being the best husband and father I can possibly be. At Judgment Day, it won't really matter that my kids grump before school or stay awake past bedtime. I will be judged for my actions and desires.

I love the gospel and the blessings that come to me and my family for living it. Blessed be the name of the Lord. His plan of salvation is so amazing! :)

Dejunkification

Yesterday was a long, busy day. And I got a sunburn. But it was so worth the effort and effects.

When we moved here we had two kids and considerably less stuff. Skyler was 22 months old and Wes was 3 months old. We brought what I'd say was too much stuff. I say that now, but back then it seemed about right. It all fit in our small apartment back then so it couldn't have been all that much.

The amount of stuff we own has changed.

A lot.

In our years here we have purchased a lot of stuff. Some of it is for the boys, some for Angie and me, some just because we ... well, actually, I have no idea why we have some of this stuff.

When we moved from our apartment into a 3-bedroom mansion, we felt like we had all the space in the world to hold stuff. I have to tell you that the spaciousness of this house is due partly because there is less storage space than typical homes. Each room has a little closet, but that's it. No game closet or linen closet. I even busted out my inner handyman one year and put up some shelves above the washer, dryer and deep freeze. That was about a 15% boost in our storage capacity. And it felt Grrrreeeat! (Think Tony the Tiger.)

Time went on. So did our purchases. We filled every nook and cranny in our domain. I still remember the day at the store when we were deciding on buying something for Wes. I think it was the activity center we got when he was ready for it. Anyway, there we were in the store and since I was the one who kept reorganizing our stuff so it could fit in all our closets and under beds, I knew we were out of room. And this type of toy thing is pretty big. I remember turning to Angie and saying, "where are we going to put this thing when it's time to put it away?" Her answer and my acceptance has haunted me for years.

Yes, years.

She said, "We'll find somewhere." I guess I thought she knew something I didn't know. Well, that began our life of not putting everything away. It has been a stressful topic for me. The more time goes by and the more stuff we have accrued for our growing family, the deeper it hurts.

So let me tell you what we did yesterday. We dejunkified our shed! I better rewind a bit and tell you that we bought a shed kit and got some help putting it together in our back grassy area (it's no yard). This was a life saver at the time. I guess I thought that would act as some sort of magical bag of holding and solve all my storage problems. It didn't. It couldn't have. Not when we just kept buying things.

With a potential move on the horizon (after graduation and finding a job...no news yet), the question on our minds is, "How much room will we have for our stuff?" It is so stressful. Partly because we have looked into the cost of living in expensive places where tiny homes will be all we can afford. And it basically comes down to how much stuff do we want to keep. Sure, there are things we can get rid of. But if we move into a house that can hold it all, why get rid of the stuff in that gray area? You know?

We've debated having a Yard Sale or a Yard Free. We've talked about donating stuff or giving it away to friends. Or listing things on craigslist. We ended up deciding that the best thing to do for our emotional state and the speediest solution would be to go through the shed and quickly decide if an item was for keeping, donating or garbage.

We spent about an hour pulling everything out of the shed and putting it into piles. The result was thrilling! The pile of "get rid of" was huge! I felt that dormant organizer wake up inside me. I could see where things might actually be moved from our living space out to the shed! The end result wasn't so quick to come though. It took a few hours to go through boxes, throw away certain portions and get the rest ready for recycling. That included breaking down boxes so they fit in my car. It was a tight fit, but so worth it in the end. The van was chuck full, too, with everything going to donation. I spent the next hour driving both vehicles to their respective destinations, finalizing the freedom of space.

I do love space.

Empty space.

Living space.

Outer space.

(That's been a joke lately about where we could move to get away from our 10 days of power outage, another partial day of power outage, 5 days of losing our Internet connection, etc.)

We would benefit from taking the counsel of modern-day prophets to "live within your means" and apply it to the volume of our home. I'd like to enjoy the stress-free lifestyle of fitting in our house just as I enjoy living within our income.

Any stories you'd like to share about dejunkifiying your life?

It's been 3 weeks since I wrote last. It's been a very crazy time and we have been very blessed to pass through it so well.

Oftentimes I pray for protection from harm, danger and accident. I also pray sometimes for my family's protection with the presence of holy angels. I've had experiences in the past where I believe those prayers were answered. This month, again, we've felt that blessing.

It all started on Friday, June 29, 2012 around 5:30pm when I was on my way home for a hot date with Angie. I had already picked up our babysitter and Angie called my cell to tell me about the humongous storm coming within the hour. There were dark storm clouds ahead, those dark blue kind. It was pretty to look at.

But not the aftermath. It was pretty something else. Lame.

The storm was called a derecho. It only lasted 10-15 minutes in our area and I'm guessing it was similar in other areas. It was very powerful, however, and it leveled trees and many power lines in several states. We did not know this at the time. Even if we did, it wouldn't have made much difference.

It was date night.

Hot Date Night.

And we had a babysitter. We got out flashlights and candles for everyone and some glow sticks for the boys in case the power stayed off during the night. Glow sticks are part of our 72-hour kits for just this reason. Our boys go nuts in pitch darkness. We avoid the screaming with a fun glow stick. Thanks, Dollar Store!

Our plans were to go to dinner that night. The storm was heading southeast and we didn't want to catch up to it by driving after it. So we went north and it's a good thing we did. We tried to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant in that direction. We got to the general area and found out that Wal-Mart's power was off. That wasn't a good sign. We kept going to the restaurant, thinking they'd be out of power too, but it was date night! Hot Date Night! We made it to the turnoff for the Mexican restaurant only to see the road blocked with orange cones and guarded by a police car. Then we saw a fire engine and smoke rising nearby. There was a little fire in the trees between us and our favorite California Burrito (with chicken!) so we couldn't go any farther. I guess lightning struck a tree and caused the fire.

We saw so many businesses without power that we headed north again to the next city. There was a little diner in a small area that happened to have power. They got flooded with customers at this time since so many people were without power. I heard there were 3.2 million people who lost power from the storm. I can't confirm that, but I can confirm that 600,000+ lost power that are customers of our electric company in our state alone so I believe the number. Anyway, many of these people were looking for food and this diner stayed open past hours to serve them all. We were very grateful. (BTW, Angie's black bean burger was even better than my super duper awesome BBQ-smothered pulled pork sandwich. I want to go back just for another taste of that burger!)

This power outage occurred during one of the hottest weeks I can remember. Temperatures were 90+ degrees Fahrenheit every day and some days were over 100 degrees. Add on humidity for a rough time. The first day we just drove around all day in our van so we could stay cool. We drove an hour to get to some stores that were open and we spent the day shopping in comfort.

The following days were nuts. We couldn't cool off the house at night because it didn't get below 70 degrees. And the uncomfortable and uncanny lack of wind was a huge deal. In essence, the house didn't cool off in the evenings below about 80 degrees and each morning we had to leave by 9 or 10am because we started getting cooked alive in our house.

Each night got worse and worse. We set up a tent on the porch one night, but I decided last second not to sleep in it, even though it was cooler outside. Good thing, too! It rained really hard that night. That would have been really lame because our boys are scared of thunder and terrified if it's close.

After a week of spending the afternoons and evenings with friends or at the church building, we happened to be with another family from church when they got a phone call saying their power was on. We were so blessed to be with them because they invited us over to spend the night. We'd been on the verge of finding somewhere to go for a night or two. This was a miracle for us. These people truly are angels who reached out and blessed us and, especially, our kids.

We were worried about our kids for days, especially our baby. Nights were so hot that we didn't know if the boys would get sick or if anything bad would happen to them from heat overload. We didn't want our baby to get too hot or too cold and didn't know how to dress him before bed. We were blessed with good health during those hot nights at home. We were more blessed to have cool nights with air conditioning at our friends' home. All the thanks we gave them didn't equal the blessing it was to be there. We hope to return the favor to somebody who needs our help as badly as we needed theirs.

Thank you JJJMG&C(&A)!!!